Four months

So Charlie is four months old on Saturday, my how the time flies. Few thoughts on recent mannerisms below.

• He is starting to slowly ween himself off of the pacifier. Once he realized how delicious his own hands (and everything else in the world around him )are he has seemed much less interested in the pacifier. His main comfort mechanism seems to be his index and middle finger on his left hand. Very odd in that both Amy and I did the same thing when we were young too!



• About a month ago, Charlie started finding his feet. Pretty funny in that he usually starts talking to his feet as soon as he puts his hands on them, sort of like a baby version of "this little piggy." No feet in the mouth yet, but no doubt that is sure to come.



• He continues to love his man-chair and spends hours kicking away in it. For those of you that have had the pleasure to see Charlie working out in his chair, you are aware of the little man's stamina and determination. Will be interesting to see if he ends up being a runner or cyclist. He has started standing for very brief points in time, but not for extended periods. Charlie likes to stand for a couple seconds then pull one foot out and do his stork imitation. Standing will come very quickly I have a feeling.



• The most recent habits are related to his voice. Charlie has done a great job of cooing/talking to us most mornings, but has recently started to add in a nice high pitched scream to his repertoire. This, of course, was displayed prominently when we were at Jason's Deli two nights ago and the ladies around us were wondering if Charlie was crying, screaming in pain, or screaming out of joy. I have a feeling the screaming will come in handy when we want to budge in line or have some room to ourselves in Chipotle.



• Charlie continues to sleep like an absolute champion. We are very lucky in that he typically is sleeping by 9pm and doesn't wake up until 6 in the morning. See a picture above for him in the Tigger PJ's. The other one is wearing Mom's Fat Tire hat, pretty cute.

All for now, Charlie continues to be a happy and healthy baby. We are very blessed to have him in our lives.

Four month checkup

Charlie went in for his four month checkup this morning. Here are the stats, story to follow:

Weight: 13lbs, 5 oz (25th percentile)

Height: 24.5 inches (25th percentile)

Head: Big and Round (88th percentile)

So, our little guy is growing out and up quite nicely. Further, he has nearly ascended into the 90th percentile for head size, which means he is still pretty much an orange on a toothpick. I'll keep to that joke and not going any further by calling him Stewie Griffin or anything else that may cause him irreparable damage to his huge noggin.

A British scientific group did a study a couple years back and said that there was positive linkage to size of head and IQ, so this is a great thing for Charlie as I would much prefer a brilliant child to one that is not (duh!). I only hope he doesn't have to become British to reap the benefits of the study. If he does, I guess that means we will be watching a lot of the premier league, replacing "z" with "s" for everything except Zebra, using words like "blimey" and "guv-na", turning normal foods into pies and probably picking up an occasional lawn gnome for the garden. Stay tuned.

Anywhoo, the dr's appt. So, after the little man spit up on Dad, the floor, Mom, the carseat, and the dr's table, he was ready to be weighed and measured. Everything went great, Chazz was so excited that he gained that much weight, he peed all over the scale - he gets that from his Mom...

Amy and I always guess on weight before we go into the Dr's. As you probably guessed, Amy is nearly always the victorious party in these little wagers. However, I guessed 13.6 today to capture the Garms Family Guessing Game Crown. So, as the victor, I held down Charlie as he got his four shots and tried to comfort him afterwards. As Amy learned in the 3 month check-up, the shots are much harder on the parents than they are on the child.

So, Charlie is four months and a happy/healthy baby boy. We are very lucky and blessed to have him in our lives. All for now.

Cheerio Guv-na

Travis